I have a crazy suggestion that might placate some of the drama that has recently happened and I wanted to propose an idea that may help to make the Unity Elections actually fair, without all of the craziness. Remember, this is only a suggestion/opinion/idea, and in no way, shape, or form is it perfect. I fully expect people to love it, hate it, agree or disagree with it, and I fully expect to debate its merits and flaws. This is just a thought I had, that I put into words, and it is meant to spark some discussion. In my line of work, that is how progress is made, and that is what I am trying to do.

So here is my proposal:

Why not set up the Country Presidency where the parties in the T5 and all viable Popular 6th Parties rotate who the CP is? No more Inter-Party Primaries. No more arguing about who backs who. No more drama.

Here is how I would set it up (Not necessarily in any order, but the order could be determined via the old draw party names out of a hat method, which I would gladly do!):

For Example, if this were reality (which it is not)

Feb - AMP
Mar - WTP
Apr - USWP
May - 6th Parties
June - FED

We could just keep rolling with that until the threat is gone.
Now for the fun part…

Here is how I would pick the person to be the CP:

When it is the party who is up for the CP’s turn, they nominate 3-5 people from their party. They have to figure out who their nominees are based on any system that they choose (as will all other parties). It should be an inter-party vote, and the best and brightest get a shot (at least that is how it should be). This would be hardest for the 6th Parties, but it is doable. Make the 6th Parties join a coalition of sorts, and only those involved in the coalition are eligible.

Only people who are genuinely interested in running should be in the hunt. No putting up 2 patsies and 1 guy you want elected. It wouldn’t actually work anyway (you’ll see in a minute why!).

Then, instead of that party getting to hand pick their guy, the rest of the
parties vote from that list, and the winner gets the nod. The nominating party would not be allowed to vote. All nominees would have to be viable candidates, as the other parties could end up electing one of them.

If it were done this way, there could be no election rigging in theory.

How do we ensure that only the right people vote you ask???

In order to know who the voters are have each party submit a list of registered voters from their party. Set a date in stone, tell people to register, and then each party submits the register to the nominating party. Then only votes from those who had registered beforehand would count. This would also encourage 6th Party membership in the Unity Process.

The vote would have to be done in a poll on a forum or googledocs or something and get it sent to people who qualify (I'm not smart enough for that, but I know it can be done), by the nominating party, as long as the PP from the other T5 parties (and select 6th Party PP’s) have access to the voter list, and the results. The results must be ratified by all PP’s before the nomination can be confirmed.

If there is a discrepancy, and no agreement can be made, then it will be up to the remaining parties to select a CP candidate from their own party, and run them. It defaults to the way things should be in the first place. Unity goes out the window. Then the PTO could steal the show, which is a huge reason to get an agreement worked out ahead of time.

It may need to run a few weeks ahead of schedule in order to work, but in theory it should work.

The party that will be elected will have no say, and again, in theory, it would make it more competitive in terms of campaigning too. Each of the people would be campaigning for the people’s vote, not for the vote of the people who already have their backs. Isn’t that what this is all about anyway?

Everyone would have to be patient and wait their turn, but it would get around to them. This is true Unity. This is how things become equitable.

It could be agreed upon beforehand that if the PTO thing goes away, we finish one whole round of the process so everyone gets their shot. Then it can go back to normal. If we need to go longer than this, we can take a popular vote on extension of the process, or we could find a better method.

The key to all of this is being able to let go, and trust other people, which is something that is clearly impossible for some people here. Without that, something like this would never work. It would take a huge commitment from some people who may not want to relinquish their hold of the politics in the eUSA, but it would have to happen. And in my very noobish opinion, it needs to happen. What we are doing now isn’t working, and it is time for a change.

I understand that a lot of the minute details would need to be worked out. But it is a base, and sometimes a base of an idea is all someone needs to make it work. If anyone can make this idea better, go for it. If you want to blast me, go for it. If you want to be a hater, go for it. I'm all ears.

“We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I like the idea of a general vote. Though the whole "parties having their own votes" thing was supposed to be cool, we just don't have a good enough governing body to look over the whole thing. I mean, 6ths never even got PMed.

As for the party only nomming people from their own...I'm more against that. Certain very talented people can't run in certain months due to RL stuff. So if their party doesn't have the shift, they just can't run.
I mean, I'd love for Oblige to run and instill the "Grunty" dictatorship he's been talking about, but he just doesn't have time atm.

I'm also not a fan of the not allowing your own party to vote. Everyone gets a little bump from voting, so taking that away doesn't feel right xD. Though I'm sure some of those players could be recruited for the campaign, a lot of newer guys who don't have the stuff yet to assist the POTUS favorite would just be sitting on the side.

Also, we usually don't have 2 serious people from one party running at the same time from what I've seen.

I'm really not in favor of this system, not necessarily due to it's implementation, but due to the philosophy behind it. I don't think we should be encouraging an idea that would prevent the most able candidates for PoTUS from running, necessarily, at a time that would be most beneficial to them. I think one of the few benefits of the current Unity system is that it does have a history of putting the most experienced candidate into office, something that shouldn't be prevented on the basis of party affiliation.

To be specific, I think if we look back in history, we'll notice that this would have prevented a large amount of our best presidents from being effective in their own office. For example, I'm under the personal opinion that Cerb's first presidency was a highly successful one (August 2011). However, he's also in Law School, meaning that his effectiveness would only be exhibited in a June-August span. Situations like these would be irreconcilable in a rotational system, where Candidates would be in a situation where they would be encouraged to seek the Presidency, even if their own circumstances would prevent them from being effective in the office, simply because they would know that wouldn't have another shot until 5 months later.

Another thing that I would want to mention is the idea that there isn't really a party monopoly on the Presidency in status quo, meaning that this wouldn't really be solving an existing problem. Unity elections started in September, and since then, the breakdown of Presidents has been 2 USWP, 1 AMP, and 1 Fed. Is it entirely equal? Not quite. Is there a glaring injustice in the election system? I don't think so either.

Overall, I think we should always be facilitating the best, most experienced, and most active candidates for president, regardless of party affiliation. Using a rotational system would prevent that, and, I believe, cause far more harms in the Executive, than potential benefits it could yield.

Thanks to all who read and commented. I have previously stated that this was only an idea brought forth to elicit other ideas. Some people like all of it, some don't. Some like parts of it, and that's okay. I do not disagree with anything that anyone said. It is not the "perfect fix" by any stretch, but is offers up some ideas to potentially assist against future issues.

The troubling part for me is the fact that people don't believe that an issue exists. That is where we differ, I suppose. I definitely think that until the PTO is long gone, Unity is the way to go, but I am not sure that there is actual unity in the process. I think that the same 2-3 parties will continue to "win" these primaries and elections, and until there is complete transparency, everyone else not involved with those parties will question the results. It is human nature.

The other thing that I see as a major stumbling block is inclusion. If you aren't in one of the big parties, your voice isn't truly heard, and there is no way that "the powers that be" would ever let someone like that run for office. That is unfortunate. Everyone should have the same opportunity to be successful, especially under a unified front, and I just don't get that vibe.

Like I said, I don't have all of the answers... I may not have any of them, but there may be someone out there who read this today and can alter something, or expand on something, and make it usable. You don't know until you try.

Rest assured, I am a outside of the box kind of guy, and I will hit you with crazy, off the wall ideas from time to time.

Not to be negative but this would take considerable coordination by some sort of election committee. Of course the forum runs on committees. :D Problem is they get polluted sometimes. Overall this is an ingenious idea. It would be interesting to see if it could be implemented.

BTW, beware of people beating the unity is the best candidate BS. I wont go there because it's a different discussion but I've not seen any real gems lately, just a string of the same ol' same ol'.

This is always good to think about. Clearly what we have isn't working and just like with recent ATO efforts, everyone is looking at each other like 'well I thought YOU were gonna do it.'

John Killah has made an election committee one of his personal projects for the month. There's no reason for the government to be hands-off when it comes to things like oversight and rules that make sense.

Sizzle, if you'd like to get involved in that sort of thing, please reach out to John Killah!

It's a nice thought, but situations and people change too quickly for a set-in-stone system to work.
The flaw in this logic is that democracy is based in competition, and this eliminates any competitive ambitions.

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